


The future

by Kia619



Series: Angstgent 24 [6]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: Agent 3 scar, Agony, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Lesbian Cephalopods (Splatoon), Long-Term Relationship(s), Octopi & Squid, Ponytail Agent 8, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:27:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23615203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kia619/pseuds/Kia619
Summary: Three and Eight have been living together for quite some time, Three is trying to figure out the best way to show her appreciation for Eight and how much she means to her. Three figures out the best possible idea.
Relationships: Agent 3/Agent 8 (Splatoon)
Series: Angstgent 24 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1466896
Comments: 68
Kudos: 55





	1. The time has come

Three was a lot of things. She was tough. She was fierce. She was a skilled fighter. She was also gentle, kind, and loving. But if there was one thing that Three was absolutely and unequivocally NOT… it was subtle. Three has the hardest time being even slightly subtle in any way shape or form, at least when it comes to showing her affection to Eight. So now, two years after they’d moved in together, Three is faced with the ultimate conundrum… being subtle enough that Eight doesn’t catch on to her plans. 

Three knew better than to try and sneak away while the two of them were at the mall together, she’d catch on far too easily. No, Three needed HELP getting her plan into action. Three had managed to get a hold of Marina and explained her situation, and plan, to her. Marina was more than happy to help Three with her endeavours, and seemed almost excited about the whole plan as well. Marina agreed that she and Pearl would occupy Eight for the day so Three could do the one thing she can’t risk Eight catching her doing under any circumstances… She needs to buy a ring.

The plan is simple. Pearl and Marina are going to take Eight on an outing of some kind, Three told them to stay away from the mall because that’s where the jewelry store is and she needs to not get caught inside there. Three has the entire day to get her task done, which is good because she also has a handful of other errands to run as well.

“Are you SURE you’re okay with this?” Eight asks Three as she slips her coat on over her shoulders, giving her girlfriend a concerned glance.

“I’m sure! Besides I’ve got some of my own things to get done, it’ll give me a chance to pick up some food without you judging my choice of juice.” Three chuckles and smiles, prompting Eight to giggle slightly in response.

“Alright well… Just try not to spend too much time cooped up in here by yourself, alright?” Eight gives Three a quick kiss on the lips and smiles, the buzzer goes off shortly after meaning Marina and Pearl are here. “Ah, I gotta go, I love you!”

“Love you too!” Three calls after Eight as she runs out the door. Once Eight is gone and the door is closed, Three runs back into her bedroom and opens up her bedside table, digging through it to get to the bottom. “Come on I know it’s in here… AHA! Gotcha!”   
  
Three pulls out a small pamphlet from the jewelry store in the mall, and a specific ring is circled. It’s a three gemstone ring, and Three knows exactly what each gemstone is going to be. The two smaller ones are going to be gemstones that match their eye colours, or at least, the natural eye colours. So orange on one side, and purple on the other, to represent Three and Eight respectively. In the middle, the big gemstone will be diamond, because it’s the best gemstone and Eight deserves the best. Three has been labouring over the gemstone choice for months at this point, but she was more than happy with the decision she came to, she just hopes Eight appreciates it.

Three pockets the pamphlet and grabs a leather jacket off the coat rack, slipping her arms into it and grabbing her keys as she heads out the door. She’s got a very basic look today but thanks to Eight she’s been slowly improving her own fashion sense. Something about looking nice made her feel more confident in herself, which she absolutely needed because she was a nervous wreck about everything else she had to do today. She had a pair of black lace up shoes on her feet with blue jeans around her legs, and a dark red tee shirt that said “Yeah I’m gay, keep walking” in even darker red. Subtle, yet effective. She also now had on the black leather jacket that she’d grabbed moments ago, and a black bandanna that wrapped around the top of her head above her ears.

“Okay, let’s get this done.” Three says to herself as she pushes open her door, locking it behind her, and making her way up the stairs to the launchpad. She has a mental list of everything she needs to get done today but the only thing that she absolutely cannot fail to get done is getting this ring. She inputs the mall into the control panel for the launchpad, and soon she’s flying towards it at top speed.

Eight, Pearl, and Marina were all very excited to be spending time together today. Marina hadn’t gotten to spend much time with Eight lately due to, well, Three. Marina wasn’t upset about this, she knew Eight had to find her place in inkling society. When Marina thinks about it, she sometimes chuckles to herself at how things played out. Herself and her sister, both wound up falling for inklings, despite everything they were taught growing up. 

“So, what’s the plan for today? You were both pretty cagey about the details so I assume it’s something big.” Eight smiles as she walks through Inkopolis park with Pearl and Marina, chuckling lightly to herself as she thinks about what sort of extravagant plans that Pearl and Marina must have made.

“Well, truth be told we really just wanted a chance to hang out. We haven’t had much of a chance to catch up recently so we thought we would take it easy. Go to lunch, maybe a movie or something, just hang out.” Marina smiles, trying very hard not to let on that Three put them up to this whole thing. 

“Ooohhh! Exciting!” Eight giggles as they walk through the park and make their way towards Inkopolis Square where they can stop for some lunch.

Three, on the other hand, was having one hell of a time. She had been at the mall for a grand total of ten minutes and she was already completely lost. The map she had was outdated and it seemed like every single shop decided to change where they were inside of it. She was getting frustrated but she wasn’t going to leave without accomplishing her mission. She was Agent Three, she could save the Great Zapfish and be home in time for dinner, there’s no way in hell she’s failing to get a ring to propose with!

Finally after what felt like an eternity, Three found the jewelry store! Her legs were sore and she swears she’s walked more through the mall in this one trip than all of her previous trips to it combined. But she’s found the jewelry store at long last. It’s now time for her to enter and get her thing done. She walks in reaching into her pocket and pulling out the pamphlet, looking at the name of the store on it and confirming that it does match the name of the store she’s entering.

Once she’s by the counter, an employee walks up to her and flashes her a smile, spotting the pamphlet in her hands and the very clearly circled ring, making a mental note of where it is in the store but not going out of her way to grab it until asked for it as she doesn’t want to come off as prying.

“Good afternoon! Welcome to Inkopolis Jewelers, what can I do for you today?” She asks as she stands across from Three, whom is now slightly struggling to form words. Fortunately, Three’s nervousness is quickly pushed down as she remembers why she’s here in the first place.

“Ah, y-yes hi… I would like to purchase a ring if I could? I-I know what gemstones I want and I have the ring size as well.” Three pulls out another sheet of paper, she’d had to somehow take Eight’s ring size without her noticing which was a lot more difficult than Three had originally expected. Eight wakes up EARLY. Three eventually resorted to just not going to sleep one night because there was no other option.

“Wonderful! Is it for yourself or is it for someone else?” The employee asks, trying to be polite but knowing full well that no one comes into a jewelry store this nervous unless they’re buying something for someone else, and if it’s a ring, it’s often an engagement ring.

“It’s for s-someone else… I’m gonna propose to my girlfriend, we’ve been together for like, three and a half years, and the time just kinda felt right ya know?” Three rubs her neck awkwardly, she’s hoping to just get the ring and be done with this part. She’s nervous enough about the entire thing to the point that she has an entire plan for how to propose written in a notebook that’s hidden in her bedside table.

“Aww that’s so sweet! I’d be happy to help! Okay so you said you knew what ring and what size right?” The employee asks as she waits for Three to either hand the papers over or read off their contents to her.

“Ah yes, um, okay so the circled one is the ring I want…” Three hands the pamphlet over to the employee, blushing lightly as she thinks about presenting it to Eight. “And um, here, this has the size and the gemstones I want…”

Three hands the other sheet of paper over as well and the employee graciously accepts them. She nods and goes into the back to grab the correct size ring and see if they have the gemstones that she wants. After what feels to Three like three halves of an eternity, the employee returns with another sheet of paper.

“Okay so we need to set the gems into the ring which will take a little bit of time, fortunately we don’t actually have any other ring orders so it will only take about two hours. Would you like to put a deposit down or just pay it all now?” The employee hands the sheet of paper over to Three with the total price of her order on it. Three had mentally prepared herself for how high it was going to be so she’s not shocked, but it still stings a little bit. But she tells herself that Eight is worth it.

“I may as well pay it all now, just rip the bandaid off all at once right?” Three laughs awkwardly and pulls out her money, paying for her order in full. She then realizes that she has to kill a couple of hours before she can actually snag the ring and go home. Fortunately she does have a handful of other things she needs to get done so hopefully by the time she’s done those things the ring will be ready.

Three walked through the mall and found herself at another store she never thought she’d have set foot in before she started dating Eight. A store that sells natural soaps. Now Three wasn’t some nut about having all natural products in her home and neither was Eight, however these places often were the only place that Eight could go to get a soap for her tentacles that didn’t irritate them. As a result of this, Three found something else out. The all natural soaps tended to not irritate the scars and scrapes that her agent work left on her body, which was actually a big reason she rarely used soap in the past.

Three didn’t like smelling like body odor, but it was preferable to the stinging all over her body that resulted from the abrasive commercial soaps that you buy at the grocery store. Fortunately once she and Eight went shopping together, Eight recommended Three at least try some of the natural soaps, and to her surprise she found that she didn’t react at all to the natural soaps. She thinks she likely just has sensitive skin in general as well, so the natural soap is better for her anyways. 

She doesn’t spend much time in the store however, she quickly snags the products she needs and takes them to the counter, paying for her order again and heading to the next store on her list. The next store is going to eat up more of her time which is good, she needs to eat up a handful of hours after all. She’s not actually going to buy anything here today, but she does need to narrow down some options. She walks into the furniture store and makes her way over to where the couches are. The couch in her living room was fine sure, but it was nearly six years old and was due for a replacement. She’d narrow it down to a few options and then come back with Eight to make the final decision.

She seemed to like the fabric couches over the leather ones. The leather ones were far more expensive and she found that she couldn’t sit on them for nearly as long because she’d just get too hot since the leather doesn’t breathe like the fabric ones do. But she did find a couple of both that she wouldn’t mind sitting in her living room for the foreseeable future. Sometimes Three would think about maybe getting a house instead of an apartment, still a small house but it would allow Eight to have a more dedicated spot for her music equipment. Hell she’d be able to get more than the limited stuff she has now. Maybe once she presented the ring to her they could start thinking about things like that. Three never thought she’d move out of her apartment before she met Eight, and now here she is fantasizing about them sharing a house. 

Three’s phone goes off and she answers, it’s just the jewelry store telling her that the ring is ready to be picked up. She jots down the couches she liked into the notes on her phone and then made her way back over to the jewelry store, her mind still stuck on thoughts of how she and Eight are going to spend the rest of their lives together and what adventures they might get up to. She smiles to herself as she picks up the ring, putting it in her pocket. She can feel it in her ink, something big is coming, and she’s excited to start the next chapter of her life.

Three heads home with her purchases, she walks rather than super jumping as she needs all the time she can get to think of the perfect way to present the ring to Eight. She walks by Inkopolis park and spots a clearing by the lake where she pictures what it would look like closer to sunset. She blushes and smiles, it’s perfect. Now she just has to figure out how to get Eight to take a walk with her to the park without making her plans too obvious. Excitedly she runs the rest of the way home, she’s got to make sure she has proper date clothes cleaned and ready to go for their next date night.


	2. This isn't ideal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't how it was supposed to be...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \------------------------------

Everything was dark. Her head felt like it was in a vice and her entire body ached. Her wrists burned. Slowly Three regained her consciousness, and she realized she wasn't in Inkopolis anymore. She shakes off her wooziness and tries to clear her head but finds her memories are hazy, she nearly can’t recall her own name. She tried to move but found her wrists were bound, she tries shifting to a squid to slip through them but her body refuses to change forms, she’s stuck in her humanoid shape. She struggled against her restraints, something about them stung horribly and made her feel sick. There was a familiar smell but Three couldn't quite put her finger on it. Maybe if she could recall how she got here she could figure out how to get out...

She tries to remember what she was doing before this happened. She had been out on another date with Eight. They were walking in the park, hand in hand. She’d planned the entire day just to get the moment she wanted. They'd spent the entire day turfing and they were taking the long way home just so they could spend a few moments together in Inkopolis park when it wasn't busy, or at least, that’s what Three had told Eight.

Three had been trying to find the perfect moment to ask Eight the big question, the question that involved the ring that had been burning a hole in her pocket as she tried to find the words she needed to present it to Eight. She remembers seeing the sunset off the horizon over the nearby lake, how the colours danced across the water. How the scene felt just perfect. Three remembers struggling to find words. She remembers Eight looking at the same sunset across the lake. She had reached into her pocket and was ready to do it, she was ready to ask the question. But then something happened...

She remembers being taken.

She remembers feeling something, or rather someone, grabbing her from behind, pulling her to the ground and then dragging her away by her arms. She panicked and being unable to fight she instead tried to call for help. The ring box landing on the ground where she once stood.

"Eight! Help!" Three called, but whatever had grabbed her was fast, by the time Eight turned to look she was already disappearing into the horizon. Three remembers crying as she tries to escape the clutches of the one who took her, hadn’t she and Eight suffered enough?

Then she remembers blackness taking her. Whatever had snatched her had made sure she was knocked out cold before she was carried too far. Her head still hurt from where she was struck. Maybe that’s why she was struggling to recall most things. She couldn’t see very well either but that could be just from the darkness of the room she was in.

Whatever or whomever it was that had taken her had targeted her specifically. Why that is she had no idea. But here she was. She prayed it had only targeted her, and not any of her friends. Especially not Eight. But they likely would've taken Eight at the same time as her if they had wanted to do so. Maybe this had something to do with when Zod set them up, but that was so long ago it was a bit of a stretch to assume they were connected events. They’d figured that the whole ordeal with Zod had simply been him trying to get back at Marie for rejecting him, which seemed plausible enough, he’s a jerk after all.

Three then heard a sound, it sounded somewhat like a heavy metal door opening and then closing from across a hallway. She then heard footsteps, they were heavy and metallic, and they were coming closer. Heavy metallic footsteps echoed in Three’s ears as she tries to figure out where she is and why she was taken… though she’s sure she’ll find out soon enough.

Three struggles harder against her restraints, still unable to shift into a squid and escape, the footsteps are getting closer. Three pulls harder, her wrists burn and ache, in moments the source of the sound will be upon her. Three lets out a defeated sigh, and finally the source of the footsteps enters the room. The door swings open and an authoritative THUD can be heard when it closes again, followed by mechanical whirring indicating it was dead bolting itself shut. She’s trapped in the room with whatever just entered.

The figure was tall, standing about 6 feet high. It’s body looked like it was made primarily of metal, plastic, and electric components. One of the few things Three could make out was the Kamabo logo stamped on what would be the left pec on a living being. The figure’s head was… terrifying. It looked almost identical to the head of the statue that Eight had covered in ink and saved the world from. 

“Hello.” The figure says in a somewhat robotic voice. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Who the FUCK are you?!” Three spits. She doesn’t care who this is, she puts up her bravest face, the rage and fire in her eyes the same as when she’d faced foes in October Valley. She wasn’t going to be intimidated by a robot.

“Oh don’t tell me you forgot me so soon, after I gifted you that lovely mark on your face there.” The figures face didn't move, its mouth simply lit up when it spoke, but there was venom in those words and it stung Three's ears as she heard them.

Three’s eyes went wide as she processed what it just said. No, it couldn’t be, Eight had destroyed him! Three examines the figure more closely, it looks almost human save the large amounts of metal and plastic used for its body. It was as though it had created a body for itself from old artwork of what humans supposedly looked like.

The figure chuckles, filling the room with overwhelming dread. Three’s hearts sink as she feels a surge of terror run through her body. She realizes that he knew how to get to her, he knew where she was and likely that meant he knew where she lived. Just how much of her life did he know?

“Forgive me, you must not recognize my new form. I’m Tartar, and you are my prisoner.” His face doesn’t change, given that it’s made of molded metal and plastic, but his tone indicates that he’d be smirking if he could.

Three growls and struggles against her restraints, groaning in pain as her wrists burn and ache in response to her attempts to escape. Her feeble attempts at escaping prompt another chuckle from Tartar.

“Oh you like those restraints? They’re designed specifically to prevent you from shifting forms. Small needles with just the smallest amount of my wonderful sanitization compound injected into your body keeping you from being able to change forms.” His robotic voice snickers, he’s enjoying the terror that he’s causing Three to experience.

Three’s eyes fill with fear and she tries even harder to rip her arms out of the restraints, knowing the sanitization ink is involved scares her deeply. She wants nothing to do with it. She can already feel the scar on her face starting to warm up, she’d gone so long without a reaction that she wasn’t sure she could handle the pain anymore.

“Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to take over you like I did last time. No. This time it’s MUCH more personal.” Tartar moves slightly away from Three, and seems to wheels some sort of cart closer to her. She can’t see what the cart contains as it’s covered by a white sheet, but the fact that he brought anything near her terrifies her. “This time, I’m going to make you suffer for what you did to me and my new world.” 

He removes the sheet that laid over top of the cart, revealing all manner of knives and other various objects that made Three shudder on sight. She very much did not want to find out what Tartar had in store, but by the looks of the instruments before her, she’s not making it out of this unscathed… if she makes it out at all.

"You see, I had been working on this form of mine for quite some time. But the events that lead to my old forms defeat accelerated my plans." There's no emotion behind these words. He's monologging because he can. He knows Three can do nothing to escape. "I no longer have the means to wipe the planet clean of you disgusting creatures, but that is also no longer my goal. I have waited many long years for a worthy successor to the Humans that created me, and you just had to take it away from me. So now, I am going to show you true pain."

Three watches in horror as he picks up a large knife, it looked like it was as long as the distance from her elbow to her wrist if you included the handle, she can almost hear a smirk as he picks up another object, he presses a button and a flame shoots from the end. He brings the two objects together, heating the blade of the knife until it’s almost glowing. 

“I’ve always wondered, how sensitive ARE those tentacles on the tops of your heads?” He moves closer to Three who struggles to get away, anything but endure what Tartar has in store, but her attempts are fruitless as she is completely helpless to escape him as he approaches.

He presses the flat end of the blade firmly against the middle of her right tentacle, the searing pain roaring through her body, she lets out an agonized scream as she feels the heat burning and scarring her. It’s an agonizing sensation like nothing she’s felt before, even the sanitization scar across her face didn’t burn like this does. Tears roll down her cheeks as she tries blocking out the pain but she can do nothing but focus on it.

“Oh wonderful.” Tartar chuckles, pulling the knife away and finally allowing her a brief respite from the pain. “That is going to make this all the more enjoyable.” 

He grabs a needle off the stand and jabs it into Three’s neck and injects the substance into her. She feels it course through her body and she realizes that she feels more alert than before, her hearts begin beating faster and her breaths become faster… she has to assume that he just injected her with a dose of adrenaline, but as to why she has no idea. 

“I am going to ENJOY making you pay.” Tartar taunts, Three can hear the smirk that his robotic face will not display. He brings the flame to the blade again, warming it back up for his next instance of torture.

"M-my friends won’t let you get away with this, they'll find you.” Three feels the tears already welling in her eyes, ready to fall down her cheeks again. Three feels more terror at this moment than she has ever felt at any other point in her life, not even facing down Octavio by herself had her this terrified.

Tartar brings the knife close to Three’s face making her wince in fear, the heat from the blade warming her face and causing her great worry over what he plans to do with it. She’s completely at his mercy and he shows no signs of concern over her wellbeing.

“I’m counting on it.” He sneers, and before giving her any time to consider what he meant, he brings the blade of the knife away from her face and starts to press the sharp edge against the same tentacle he had just burned moments before. Three’s eyes shoot wide and her pupils shrink.

“No!” Is all she can say as tears now freely roll down her cheeks, he hasn’t even done anything yet however she knows what’s coming and she’s terrified.

Tartar responds by slowly, excruciatingly slowly, pressing the knife harder so it breaks the solid ink layer, and slowly the knife slides through her tentacle. Three wails in agony. Her screams piercing the veil of the heavens. She bangs her head against the table she's strapped to trying to focus on anything other than the searing pain but she can't. She now realizes why he’d given her that adrenaline, to force her to stay awake and endure the suffering. The ink in her tentacle boils and solidifies from the heat, the pain searing through her entire body. She can do nothing but scream and whimper as she feels the blade slowly cutting through more and more of her form. Her eyes are forced shut as she struggles against her restraints and wails in absolute agony. The only thing to escape her tightly shut eyelids are the tears they cannot hold back.

Tartar chuckles like the psychopath he is, enjoying the suffering he is causing and knowing that he’s far from done with Three. He can hear the sizzling of the ink in her tentacle as it boils and hardens from the searing heat of the blade as he forces it through.

The searing pain of the blade disappears suddenly, and a wet flop can be heard on the floor, the only pain left is from the damage that remains. She looks down and realizes he's cut her tentacle completely off! The stump where it was once connected to her head was charred and calloused, she knew what that meant, her tentacle has been severed and burned, it was gone forever. Tears well up in her eyes as she realizes that it won’t grow back, she’s damaged permanently.

Three had never cared much about her appearance, but she had personally always liked how her tentacles looked, and now she’d never get that again. She could no longer put her tentacles back into a ponytail to match Eight, she could no longer style her tentacles together. She had lost a piece of herself. She cries as the pain and her emotions overwhelm her, she wants this to just be a nightmare, she wants to wake up and be in Eight’s arms. She wants anything but what she’s experiencing now.

Tartar then jammed the knife directly into her shoulder, pulling her focus away from her tentacles and again causing her to scream in unimaginable agony. The knife was still hot so the wound cauterized quickly, but the pain was more intense as it had cooled slightly, meaning the process was slower. She groaned in despair, Tartar only chuckled.

"Oh don't cry, we're only just beginning." He pulls the knife from Three's shoulder causing her to wince. "When I am done with you, you're going to be the best soldier in my army. And you're going to end those pathetic friends of yours with your own hands."

He sets the knife down then grabs a smaller one, he doesn't bother to heat up this one and instead instantly jabs it into her thigh. Three shrieks in pain, her form is unstable but she doesn't splat, she knows she’s taken enough damage at this point that any connected spawn point would have automatically had her reforming. The horror fully dawns on her as she realizes there's no spawn point within range, and if she dies here, that's it. She's gone.

"Finally realizing your true situation? Good." Tartar taunts before continuing into an explanation, he doesn’t want her to get the wrong idea of his intentions after all. "In order to turn you into a true soldier in my army, we need to do more than just mind control you. That simply left too much of you able to fight back and resist. We need to fully sanitize you, but to do that, we need to drain you of that pathetic ink that flows through you first."

He forcibly yanks the knife out of her thigh and she feels her ink starting to leak out of the puncture. Her form locks down and slows her hearts, the ink leaking from the wound slows dramatically but she can feel her form destabilizing. It's struggling to hold together. She knew that if she took too much more damage, she wouldn't be able to respawn even if a powered spawn point was nearby. She feels her body try to solidify, her skin layer of ink becoming thicker to try and stave off more abuse. It’s a natural response but she feels herself calm as she realizes her body is fighting back

Tartar simply laughs, with a disgusting mechanical laugh. It’s like he can sense her body’s response and almost revels in it… like it was what he planned all along.

"Oh my dear sweet child, I'm afraid you're doing exactly what I need you to. That thicker outer layer will keep you in tact while we submerge you, and then you will truly be entirely mine." His voice is calm and cold, sending a chill down Three’s spine as his words reach her ears.

Three struggles harder against her restraints, if her form is fighting  _ sub _ consciously, she's going to fight  _ consciously _ . She pulls hard on her wrist restraints, they burn and feel like they're digging harder into her, but she doesn't give up. It feels like she’s ripping the skin, it burns and aches but it’s better than anything that Tartar would do to her if she doesn’t escape.

"I... Won't let you... WIN!" Three stammers between breaths, trying desperately to both escape as well as make herself believe that maybe she could win. She has to win, not just for her own sake, but for everyone she loves. If she’s sanitized, she knows her friends wouldn’t be able to splat her… they wouldn’t be able to take the shot, she knows that if she was used that Tartar would win. She had to fight.

Tartar places his cold robotic hand on Three's shoulder, and squeezes hard, causing the fresh wound to ache and making her groan in pain. It stings like nothing else she’s ever felt before and she hates every second. He leans in so whatever it is that speaks is close to her ear and he somehow whispers into her ear.

"I won as soon as you were brought to me, this is just me having fun” Tatar pulls away from her as she looks up at his form with disgust and fear, whatever happens she just wants it to be  _ over. _

Without warning Tartar mercilessly jabs the knife into her stomach, causing her vision to blur and her breathing to stop for a moment. Again he rips the knife from the wound and ink begins leaking from the opening. She's beginning to feel weak. Her body feels light and her head is fuzzy. She knows she's lost a lot of ink and unless she can stop it somehow, it's going to be replaced by Kamabo sanitization. She's going to be the reason her friends die.

Confident that she's now out of it enough to move her to the sanitization chamber, Tartar releases the restraints on her wrists. They make a loud hiss and thunk as Three falls on the floor. The door unlatches itself and two sanitized octolings walk in, if Three was conscious she’d question why they were still wearing hypnoshades if they were sanitized, but presently she’s too busy trying not to die.

"Take her to chamber B, she's already been prepped." Tartar commands. The two octolings that walked in grab hold of Three and carry her away from the table she was strapped to and towards one of the chambers at the back of the room. She feels her strength lessening and she feels her ink pressure drop… she’s lost nearly half of her ink now, soon there won’t be any of it left. She lets out a quiet sob and she whispers what will become her last words.

“I’m sorry, Eight… I love you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> c:


	3. [No title]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [null]

Callie's head was absolutely killing her. She felt like she'd been hit by a truck then after that truck hit her it decided to back up over her just for good measure, before hitting her again and driving off. She sat up and took in her surroundings. She doesn't remember drinking anything last night, hell she doesn't even think she's had anything to drink in the past month. Looking around she sees... the ocean? She also sees trees and grass and she tastes dirt in her mouth.

She then realizes she's sitting on the cold hard ground.

"What the fuck?" She stands and tries to remember how she got here. She looks and sees some kind of doorway? It looks like it's been welded shut from the other side. There’s also the fact that her entire body is sore, not just her head. Her head just hurts the worst. Her arms and her legs have the second most ache however, they haven’t hurt this much since the first time she tried using a dynamo roller.

She looks down at the ground by her feet and horror fills her soul. There, sitting on the ground, are the remains of the Hypnoshades. They’re just intact enough for her to tell exactly what they are, however they’re also broken enough to no longer be usable. She can tell they aren’t her knockoffs as the electrical components can still be seen within them. But that can’t be right, she thought they’d been destroyed long ago! The only thing she had were replicas that didn’t have any of the actual tech in them… or at least, that’s what she thought.

"Oh no, oh no no no what did I do?!" Callie tries to find her phone, rummaging through her pockets and naturally, she doesn't have it. Just perfect, she has no idea what happened and given that she’s on her own in the middle of nowhere, it can’t be anything good. She thought she was safe from the shades finally, how could this happen to her? What had she been made to do while she was unable to control her mind and body?

Callie scoops up the remains of the hypnoshades and puts them into her pocket, she has to make sure everyone knows  _ why _ she did what she did, because she knows it can’t be good. She then realizes that she's dressed in all black. Her shoes are black with black laces, her pants are black yoga pants, her jacket is black with a black hood. And every single piece of gear had run speed up on it, as though whatever she did with those hypnoshades on required a lot of speed. Main ability  _ and _ sub ability slots all had it, it seems a bit overkill…

Fortunately for Callie, Inkopolis Square wasn't far from where she was. She could see the tower from where she was, and the central tower of Inkopolis Plaza not far away either. She made her way there sorrowfully but quickly, she hoped to whatever gods may exist that she hadn't done something to hurt her friends. She was hoping with all of her hearts that she hadn’t done anything to hurt Marie, she’d been through enough as it is.

After the most agonizing walk she's ever taken, Callie arrives in Inkopolis Square. It's emptier than usual, but there's still a handful of squids walking around. It seems like the clothing and weapon shops are closed, Callie thought that was odd but she figured maybe all the shop owners had agreed to go get coffee together or something like that. Notably however, Off the Hook are not in their studio like they usually are. That was the telling sign that something was  _ WRONG _ . Reluctantly Callie makes her way towards the entrance to Octo Canyon. Her outfit may have been used for ill, but at least it keeps her from being noticed.

Callie glances around as she arrives at the grate that will take her to Octo Canyon, making sure no prying eyes are watching her. Once she's sure it's safe to do so, she jumps through the grate.

Arriving on the other side, she's greeted by the one thing she feared. Marie. But it seemed like everyone else was there as well. Eight, Four, Pearl, Marina, Cap'n... wait, where's Three?

At this moment Callie realized that Eight was in a state of distress, Pearl and Marina had their hands on her shoulders and were trying to console her as she cried. It seemed that Eight was holding something small in her hands as she let her tears flow freely, Callie couldn’t help but wonder what it was, but she also knew that now was not the time to ask. Cap'n was making sure Octavio was keeping out of Trouble... and Marie was looking right at her.

"What did you do?" Marie's words were cold. She knew the answer already, and seeing Eight's condition confirmed to Callie what had happened. Callie fell to her knees, tears welling in her own eyes now. How could she have let this happen?

"I-I didn't... I'm so sorry..." Callie buried her face into her hands and sobbed, she didn't know what else to do. No words, no actions, no nothing could ever make up for what she had done. Even if she had no control of her actions, it was still HER that did… whatever it was that resulted in Eight crying and Three being nowhere to be found.

"I told you to smash them." Octavios deep voice rang in Callie's head, and seemed to echo through the clearing in Octo Canyon where they all resided. "Now someone else has used her. Don't blame her for this."

Marie shot Octavio the coldest glare possible, the air growing chill as fire sparked in Marie's eyes.

"Don't blame her? You're right, it ISN'T her fault." She walks closer to Octavio's snowglobe. "It's YOURS! If you hadn't put those FUCKING SHADES on her in the first place, we wouldn't be in this mess! And for your information, we DID shatter those shades!"

"Marie, please..." Cap'n tries to reason with Marie but any and all chances of that are long gone now. He sighs as he just sees his granddaughter become increasingly furious with the Octopus currently held within a snow globe.

"No, I will not be pacified. It is HIS FAULT Three is gone! He's the reason Eight is distressed! He's the reason our friend is GONE!" Tears well in Marie's eyes, everything she had been trying to keep in was now coming out. "Don't tell me to calm down, Three is gone. I can't let her memory be tainted!"

Callie, wiping her own tears and getting back to her feet, makes her way over to Marie and just pulls her into a hug. Marie quickly hugs back and the two of them sob into each other as they try and reconcile their emotions. Marie not wanting to be angry, but rather just wanting her friend back. Callie feeling horrible about how she was used to cause all of this.

"I am so so sorry Marie." Callie chokes out through sobs, not wanting to let go of her cousin for fear that she might simply disappear if her arms were to ever let her go. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing anyone else, especially not Marie.

Octavio, not being one for tactfulness, awkwardly clears his throat, gaining the attention of the pair, as well as everyone else in the area. Craig seemed a little perturbed by his lack of tact but opted not to say anything. Everyone was looking at Octavio expectantly, hoping he had some kind of vital information to share that he was merely waiting for Callie to be present for to share.

"Okay as disgusting as that display of emotion was, I can't stand by and watch you beat yourselves up over nothing." Octavio's expression becomes one of determination. "Why are you so quick to assume there's no saving Three? There's got to be something that could be done to find her and save her."

Marina perks up, making her way over to the group but not before giving Eight a full proper hug. She has a depressed look on her face but she knows she has to share this information, especially now that Callie is here, so that they can all be on the same page as to what the situation truly is.

"When Eight came to us with the news, Pearl and I tried figuring out where Three could've gone off to. We tried tracing her phone but its signal cut off before we could find her." Marina explains, pulling out her laptop and scrolling through the various commands she had entered trying to find Three. "We simply don't know where to look now."

Octavio simply rolled his eyes.

"You're missing the obvious here." It takes everything in him not to call literally all of them dense motherfuckers. "Who else knows how to connect to and control those hypnoshades? Who else utilized an army of brainwashed octarians and octolings? Who else do you all wish didn't exist that isn't me?"

There was a long pause of silence as everyone dared not match anyone else’s gaze. They all knew what Octavio was talking about, they all knew he was right, and somehow all that did was make them feel even worse. But, before Octavio could get another word in, Eight rises from the seat she’d been using and comes back into the main group.

"Kamabo." Eight's voice rang, there was a level of knowing within it, like there was no doubt in her mind whatsoever that what she was stating is pure fact. She has a nervous look about her as she finishes her statement. "Three is... back in Kamabo."

That left a sense of dread in everyone's mind. They knew what Kamabo was capable of, and they were none too keen about going back in. They’d even stopped their experimentation on the sludge that comes out of there because they’d assumed it had become dormant and it would eventually consume itself. But if Three was captured, that meant they had little to no time.

"Well there you go then, figure out where in Kamabo she is, and you can save her." Octavio crosses his tentacles in front of him, like he’d just dropped a microphone on stage or something. Everyone around him pays him no mind as they begin trying to figure out how to get into Kamabo.

"Wait. When I woke up I was next to some kind of doorway, but it looked like it had been welded shut from the inside! Maybe she's down that way!" Callie exclaimed, her soul pleading that her friend would turn out to be okay after all.

"Okay we're heading there now. Eight, are you up to come or-" Pearl is cut off by Eight already standing and strapping an ink tank to her back, and clipping an Octo Shot to her belt ready to jump in with no second thoughts.

"I am going to get my Three back and none of you had better stand in my way." Eight's sorrow had been nearly immediately replaced by rage. Kamabo was supposed to be behind them. Now here she was diving right back in. She pockets the small box she’d been holding and Callie realizes what it was in that moment, which only served to make her feel MORE guilty. Eight wasn’t going to lose Three, not now, not ever.

No one dared argue with Eight. Cap'n agreed to stay behind and stay with Octavio. He'd still be in radio contact should they need him. Callie handed Marie the shattered remains of the Hypnoshades on their way out of Octo Canyon, making sure she knew this would never happen again. Four, though she wanted nothing more than to save her cousin, also agreed to stay with the two older cephalopods, figuring this was Eight’s mission. Four did however make sure to say she’d be there in a heartbeat if she was needed.

After a short journey, they all arrive at the location where Callie said she awoke. Sure enough, there was a faded Kamabo logo on the door that was definitely welded shut from the inside. Marina, always being prepared, simply walked up to the doorframe, pulled some kind of putty out of her bag, and stuck it to the door along the hinges. Pearl seemed a little TOO excited about what Marina was doing and that caused everyone to take a quick step back.

"You might want to stand back a little." Everyone backs off a little more and Marina pulls a small remote out of her bag and hits the button, causing the door to fly off its hinges directly into the now open pathway to Kamabo. Which also happened to create a very loud boom noise.

Eight stood at the entrance, her ink tank full and her OctoShot in her hands. The loud explosion having done nothing to waver her determination. She grips her weapon tighter and readies herself to enter. But then she feels a hand on her shoulder, signalling her to wait.

"Hold on, we need to know where Three is before you go in." Marina pulls out her laptop again, now that the way is open she's able to get a low level access to Kamabo. She's tacking commands into her laptop as fast as her fingers will let her. She's growing more frustrated as every second passes. "FUCK! I can't access their security system! If I could just look at their cameras I could find out where Three is!" Marina hisses, trying to keep a cool head but failing miserably.

"Wait, Marina, what about the employee model CQ-80 Three stole, don't we still have access to that?" Pearl interjects, trying to add hope to the situation.

"YOU'RE RIGHT!" Marina calls "But where is it?!"

"Here." Eight unclips it from her belt and tosses it to Marina. "I snagged it before I came to see you two, something told me I should."

Marina nods, and then hooks the CQ-80 into her laptop and again begins tacking away commands. This time, the CQ-80 brings up a plethora of displays as Marina tries to access the inner workings of Kamabo. Security cameras, troop movements, whole entire documents about how sanitization worked. All on display.

Marina keeps typing and the screens start to disappear. More security feeds pop up, seemingly archived as Marina tries to find the path they used to take Three through Kamabo so she can construct a map. Marina glances often between the holographic displays and the screen of her laptop, making sure the information she’s getting and the commands she’s entering are all correct.

After a few minutes of typing, the only screen that remains on the CQ-80, is an internal schematic of Kamabo, with a highlighted line indicating the path Eight would have to take to find Three. Marina finally unplugs the device from her computer and tosses it back to Eight, who opens the map and studies it. 

"Okay, Callie, Marie, I know this might be a tall order, but I think you know what we need you to do if Eight is going to succeed." Marina says to the pair of inkling cousins standing across from her.

The Squid Sisters glance at each other and nod. They know what has to be done, and they're willing to do anything to help Eight rescue Three.

"Pearl, it's unlikely but be prepared for the same outcome as last time, I don't want to leave any possibility for failure." Marina turns to Pearl. "Oh and also, get them a stage of some kind. It works best if it's a full performance."

"What works best?" Pearl is visibly confused, not fully understanding what Marina is talking about.

"The Calamari Inkantation." Callie states, taking a moment to compose herself and prepare. "It breaks mind control, as well as provides a literal boost to the person it's being sung for."

"To be fair, we didn't know about the breaking mind control part until AFTER we used it on Octavio the first time." Marie chimes, also preparing herself for the performance of her life.

"Alright I'm not going to pretend to understand how a song can do that, but if it'll help Eight I'll do anything I can." Pearl whips out her phone and sends a couple messages quickly. "Heh, last time we got to use the choppers was when Eight got out of there, and now we're using them again as she heads back in."

Marina shakes her head and places her hand on Eight's shoulder. Eight is shaking, she's frustrated, mad, she's on the verge of breaking down and crying but she's also on the verge of ripping someone's throat out.

"Are you ready? She's down there, all you have to do is get her out." Marina's voice calms and focuses Eight's mind.

Eight takes in a deep breath and slowly she funnels all of her emotions into fuelling one thing, her determination. Eight tightens her fingers around the grip of her Octo Shot and nods.

"I'm ready." are the only words she speaks.

The wind picks up slightly and looking overhead they spot a chopper coming down with a small platform, a makeshift stage for Callie and Marie to perform on. Complete with microphones and some speakers. 

Workers ride the stage down, and unhook it from the chopper once it's made contact with the ground before being whisked back up into the chopper by the cords being retracted. Callie and Marie take their places on the stage, nodding to each other to signal they're both ready.

"Okay, I'm going to hook you into Kamabo's PA system so your song can be heard through the entire facility, maybe it'll help Three out too." Marina types more commands into her laptop, still wirelessly hooked into the CQ-80 after she forced the connection with the physical wire.

Eight positions herself to jump into the doorway, Callie and Marie are primed and ready to start their song, and Marina has everything hooked in so they can track Eight as she makes her way towards Three.

"Okay, we're ready." Pearl states, noticing everyone in position. "Go get her Eight, she's waiting for you." 

Eight's brow furrows and her knees bend before she leaps forward quickly and disappears into the doorway as the beat starts for Callie and Marie's performance.


	4. Kamabo strikes back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things maybe don't go super well for Agent Three

Three was not having a good day. Okay that was probably the biggest possible understatement in the history of understatements. Her entire body was sore and weak, she had ink leaking from various parts of her body, and she just all around felt pain everywhere. Her brain was foggy at best and her muscles all just ached with unimaginable pain. Oh there’s also the fact that she’s currently being dragged towards a sanitization chamber that will rob her of her free will and turn her into a mindless zombie, one that will likely be used to get to anyone and everyone Three has ever personally cared about.

Three doesn’t really like this outcome, but she’s got no strength to fight back. Her entire body is aching and her mind is remarkably unfocused, she can’t even try to wrench her wrists free from the grip of the sanitized Octolings that are dragging her to her ultimate demise. She bows her head in shame, she never thought this would be the way she went out, especially because she thought she’d finally found her eternal happiness with Eight… Three wished so desperately that she at least had the chance to say goodbye.

Three barely registers the sound of the speakers in the room activating, they start playing a beat she’s somewhat familiar with but between her weakened state and the melody being just different enough from what she’s familiar with, she doesn’t truly figure out what song is playing, she doesn’t think it matters really. But then, the vocals start, the song becomes clear to her beyond a shadow of a doubt, and the words course through her body in a way no other lyrics ever could.

_ “Ya weni marei mirekyarahire Juri yu mirekerason” _

Three feels the pain from her wounds lessen, and the fog that clouds her mind lifts. She wrenches her wrists free from the Octolings that hold them, turning on her back quickly and using both of her legs to kick them in their chests causing them to fall backwards. They land on their backs and their Hypnoshades clatter off of their faces and… oh, that’s why they still need them. The Octolings look at each other with horror, they can see what they’ve become and the look on their face says that they hate it. They grab their heads and scream in pain before suddenly dissolving into puddles of sludge. 

“Okay that’s gross” Three says as she stands, the Inkantation coursing through her entire being. She feels some of her strength return to her and she turns to face the door, still locked, but it’s where she has to go. Surely she won’t be allowed to just waltz out, whether she gets through that door herself or not, there’s bound to be plenty of resistance between her and the surface. She wonders if she’ll be able to get through the door and make it home to her lover, or if she’ll end up trapped down here until her final moments. 

Three realizes quickly that the Inkantation isn’t going to sustain her forever however, so she limps towards the table that she was previously strapped to. Her arm clutches her stomach and tries to slow the bleeding, it’s by far the worst wound and she wonders if it’ll get treated in time before she dies of ink loss. She can’t focus on what might happen though, her survival depends on her keeping her attention here and now where it belongs.

She makes it to the table and finds the small cart beside it, there were a lot more tools and objects on it that Tartar could’ve used but he opted not to. Likely because he got carried away with the ones he  _ was _ using, and he still wanted enough of Three to use as a puppet for his evil deeds. She didn’t even want to think about why there was a  _ spoon _ of all things on the cart. She glances to the restraints that held her wrists and the glowing ink that now drips from them, too much more of that in her system and she’d become nothing but a husk of her former self. Fortunately it seems that she’s not going to experience that.

Three hears the door open and she looks over to see two more Sanitized Octolings entering, she remembers what happened with the ones that were dragging her towards the sanitization chamber but… that felt cruel. They should at least go out in the least painful way possible, and with their hypnotized and brainwashed state, they likely wouldn’t feel much in the way of  _ physical _ pain. Three reluctantly sighs and grabs a knife off the cart, she’s not proud of herself for having to do this. Her left arm clutches her stomach while her right hand holds the knife in a reverse grip. The Octolings approach, they’re unarmed and are only going to attempt to subdue Three. Three bows her head in shame over what she’s about to do.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this.” She sighs heavily as the Octolings attempt to grab Three, but with the Inkantation flowing through her, she manages to channel it into her movements. She swiftly brings the knife down into the shoulder of one of the Octolings, causing them to collapse on the ground, writhe into a ball, and then dissolve into a puddle of ink. “Okay that’s just gross… again.”

She doesn’t get much time to observe the remains however, as the other Octoling is now on the attack. She pounces on Three to attempt to tackle her to the ground but Three dodges to the side swiftly, the knife slicing across the Octoling’s chest in the same swift motion, and in a moment, they too are a puddle on the ground. 

Three then falls to her knees herself, despite the Inkantation, she’s worn out due to ink loss and stress. Her body is barely holding together as it is. She prays that somehow, some way, she’s going to make it out of this… She doesn’t want to go out before she gets the chance to actually ask Eight the only question that matters between them now, one she hopes the answer to is yes. Three feels her consciousness fading, she imagines the scene of her and Eight together standing at the altar. Would one of them be in a dress? Would they both be in a dress? Suits? Who would officiate? Probably Cap’n Cuttlefish, he seems like he’d do it. 

Three hears the door opening once again, she looks over and once again a Sanitized Octoling enters the room. Except something is different, their tentacles seem more… unique. They almost seem to have a… personality to them. They also are far taller than any other Octoling Three has met, towering much higher than even Eight. The Octoling looks down at Three, and then kneels down to be eye level with her. Three doesn’t know why, but she feels safe in this moment, as though this Octoling somehow won’t hurt her, despite everything about their appearance screaming otherwise to her mind.

“Salutations, Agent Three of the Squidbeak Splatoon.” The voice of the Octoling sounds somewhat robotic, and yet distinctly female in tone. The Octoling then does something she’s never seen a sanitized Octoling do. She smiles a genuine smile.

“W-Who…” Three coughs, struggling to keep herself conscious, and struggling to remain in the moment. 

“My designation is Test Subject 8,888, however I personally identify as Dedf1sh.” The Octoling removes the Hypnoshades from their face and tosses them across the room, the Inkantation likely fried them. Three looks into their eyes and is surprised to see that they’re like a normal Octoling’s. The sclera are white and there's a distinct life within them. “I was the first test subject to resist the sanitization process, and now that my hypnotization has been broken, my free will has been restored.”

“Wh-why are you.. Here..” Three’s vision is blurring and she can tell she’s not going to be remaining awake for very long, but she has to know why this Octoling seems so interested in her. Three already has a girlfriend! One she has every intention of returning to and spending the rest of her life with, ideally anyways. Three manages to focus her mind enough to hear Dedf1sh’s reply to her question, fighting the ache of her body to listen to what the Octoling will say.

“You faced off against Octavio, and during the proceedings of the battle, the Squid Sisters performed the song known as the Calamari Inkantation. This song broke Octavio’s hold on my mind.” Dedf1sh states, it sounds like she’s reading information off of a card rather than recounting lived events, but then she’s also partially sanitized so that could be responsible for the odd speech patterns. “I fell to Kamabo by accident, and Tartar took advantage of my naivety. However the Inkantation has once again broken the hold on my mind. I would like to repay my saviors who have now unwittingly freed me twice.” 

“S-Surface… you want… the surface…” Three manages to put together the pieces of what Dedf1sh wants, and frankly deserves as well. Three hopes that this situation ends in such a way that the both of them can make it there safely. Three simply smiles before having to take a moment to wince from pain, she’s still bleeding out at this moment and needs medical attention as soon as possible. Hopefully rescue will come for her, there’s no way the song started playing by accident.

“I do not wish merely for the surface, I wish to show gratitude, and it begins with protecting a damaged Inkling who deserves a better fate.” Dedf1sh grabs the knife from Three’s hand and turns to stand between her and the door. She takes in a deep breath and lets the Inkantation flow through her, and Three sees a new level of determination enter the Octoling. Her skin seems to have small patches of unsanitized area, which reveal a pale but freckled skin that likely covered her entire body in the past. Three has to blink in surprise because she could swear she sees the unsanitized area growing.

The door again opens, a squad of five Octolings enter and scan the room. Dedf1sh screams and charges at them, knife in hand. Before they can react at all, she’s managed to dispatch two of them with quick slices across their necks. A third one falls quickly as she sweeps their feet out from under them and brings the knife into their chest. The two remaining Octolings attempt to grab her but she ducks to the side and jabs the knife into both of their sides. She’s not proud of herself, but she’s protecting Agent Three. These Octolings don’t even have the same level of self identity that Dedf1sh has, they barely have any form of identity within them at all. They’re barely more than robotic drones with the sanitization and the hypnoshades on their faces.

There then comes a commotion from outside the door, it sounds like a fight has broken loose outside of the room they’re currently in. Dedf1sh remains ready, though she is somewhat confused as to why there seems to be a battle going on outside of the room she and Three presently occupy. Loud metallic banging can be heard and the sound of someone grunting and dodging attacks as well. Dedf1sh is trembling visibly, she has no idea what’s going to come through that door, but she remains between it and Agent Three, the knife at the ready.

  
Suddenly the sound of something large and metallic collapsing on the ground can be heard, followed by some indecipherable speaking. What happens next is very unexpected. The door doesn’t unlock like it normally does, but rather, something is audibly stuck to the door, and after some muffled beeping, a loud  _ BANG _ can be heard, and the door falls over off of its hinges, and then standing on the other side of it was the one Octoling that Dedf1sh hoped to see the most,  **10,008** .


	5. Enter the dungeon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight returns to the place she swore to never set foot in again, to save the squid who stole her hearts.

Eight charged forward with a level of determination she’s not had in years. The last time she had this level of determination she was fighting her way OUT of Kamabo to make it to the surface. But arguably she had an even bigger reason to be determined now. It wasn’t just her own freedom at stake anymore, it was Three’s LIFE.

Eight thankfully wasn’t attempting this alone, she had Pearl and Marina guiding her much like last time she was going through Kamabo, though this time Marina had a much more detailed map of where she needed to go. As well as Callie and Marie performing the Inkantation as well to help Eight remain focused. 

It wasn’t long before Eight encountered the first bit of resistance. A team of Octoling foot soldiers were set between her and the first door she needed to get through. Back in her rebel days, she would fight and defeat Octolings because she had no choice, but here? These Octolings were  _ perverted _ by Sanitization… defeating them was a mercy. However in her current state, Eight didn’t feel very merciful, she felt rage. 

She screams and charges right at the group, dodging a blast of ink and grabbing the one who fired it by the shirt and shamelessly slamming them into the others with them to keep them from firing on her, and without hesitation she raises her octoshot and finishes the job. 

This is the second time Kamabo has tried to take everything from her, she’s not going to let them get away with it. She charges forwards through the first door and it wooshes shut behind her. Eight takes a moment to examine her surroundings, she’s on a narrow platform with a straight line directly to the next door, but on either side of her is a ledge with no railing and a drop directly into water, no room for error. She then hears a familiar beep, that of an Octo Sniper locking on to her position and she dodges to the side as the sanitized ink flies right through where she was standing previously and splattering against the door she just came through. 

“They’re too far away for you to hit with your weapon, you’ll have to move fast!” Marina’s voice calls through her headset. Eight takes one look at where the shot was fired from and sees that it’s not the only one targeting her, she’s going to have to book it for the next door, no sense trying to fight them.

Eight takes a quick breath and starts running for her life. She hears herself being locked on to again, and when the next blast of ink is fired she ducks her head and it whizzes harmlessly past her. Unfortunately the next shot is fired much sooner than she had anticipated and she’s hit by it right in the chest. She falls backwards, fires a couple shots from her Octoshot, and dives into the ink to recover. She had forgotten just how much it  _ stings _ to get hit by the sanitized ink of Kamabo. Her body however is quick to repel the damage thanks to being submerged in her ink, and she then leaps out of it quickly, sprinting for the door. She figures if she moves fast enough they won’t be able to get a lock on her, but unfortunately this requires far more effort than she had anticipated. 

She quickly makes it through the next door, a blast of ink flies through the opening and into the room she’s now in before she slams a button on the control panel and it too comes closed quickly. Once she catches her breath she takes a look at the room she now occupies, for one it’s far less dangerous than the last one, which Eight thinks is a nice thing. It seems to be filled with just scrap metal, perhaps this is where those Octo Weapons she destroyed while going through the tests in the Metro wound up. All the metal plates look dented and shredded so it’s entirely possible. It could also be part of a recycling project to take old metal and turn it into something else. Eight really doesn’t care much at all about that however.

Eight pulls out the CQ-80 she had with her, quickly navigating to the map that Marina had uploaded to it to find where Three was and… wait that can’t be right… 

“Marina I’ve got  _ two _ points of interest on my map here…” Eight says into her headset, confused at the two blinking dots on her map. One of them is actually not very far from her and would be damn near on the way to the other.

“What the… okay hold on I’m looking in to it” Marina’s voice calls back, faint typing can be heard through the headset as EIght remains ready in case an ambush comes through one of the doors. “It seems that when the system detected that you had entered the facility, it automatically uploaded a point of interest to your map. I know we need to save Three but you should consider at least taking a look, it’s only a tiny detour.”

“Alright, moving forward then.” Eight focuses again and closes her map, clipping the CQ-80 back to her belt. Surely there wouldn’t be anything  _ too _ dangerous at the point marked on her map. Okay it’s almost definitely a trap but she’s heading that way anyways. She takes a deep breath and pushes onwards, she only has so long to save Three after all.

Eight punches her way through the next set of hallways. Literally. She doesn’t even fire her weapon, she just runs in and any enemies are met with rage and aggression. Though most of the enemies seem to be Octolings that have been sanitized, that’s why this strategy worked. If you tried punching an OctoTrooper in the face they’d just bite your hand off, their mouths are disturbingly large compared to their bodies. After tearing through her opponents and finding herself just one door away from the point marked on her map, Eight takes in a deep breath and pushes into the room.

What she finds is… not what she was expecting. It looked a lot like one of the old locker rooms from the Octarian Military Barracks. She even recognized that the numbering on each of the locker doors was distinctly Octarian. Naturally she was drawn to one locker specifically, the one that bore her number on the front of it. A giant Eight. She stepped closer to it and knelt down in front of it, she grabbed the combination lock in her hands and without even thinking, input the code and dropped the lock to the ground, leaving her free to access the contents of the locker. 

Eight swings open the door, not sure what to expect. However she absolutely was not expecting what actually was contained within. There were her old hypnogoggles that became completely useless to Octavio after the Inkantation fried them. There was also her old Octoling chest armor, she knew it was hers because it had her name and rank laser etched into the side. “Kiaria Yuri Ida, First Unit Special Operations, Unit commander”. Gods it had been so long since she had to think about her time in the Octarian Military that she was a little shocked to see her name, rank, and title, all staring her in the face. But there was something else in the locker as well, something behind her chest plate. Eight reaches in and pushes the plate aside and the golden object fills her vision. She reaches in and grabs it, studying it over.

“It’s… a golden toothpick?” Eight says to herself as she looks over the object. It’s golden, for one, and it looks like it’s modeled to look like some kind of confectionary treat like a cake pop with a large toothpick through it. It honestly looks like something that might be used as a hair accessory… She’s not sure what to make of it at the moment so she pockets it and continues towards where Three is on her map, she could figure out the mystery of the toothpick later.

She finds that between where she found the toothpick and where Three is supposedly being kept that there seems to be almost no forces. No Octolings trying to stall her, no OctoSnipers trying to take her out, no Octo Commanders trying to gun her down. And it honestly makes her incredibly uneasy. They’re planning something, Eight can feel it. It’s been almost three hundred meters without so much as the faintest hint of hostile activity. Eight doesn’t like it, it feels like a trap. It’s almost definitely a trap.

So yeah it was a trap.

Eight was hit over the back of her head just as she was about to breach the door to where Three is supposed to be. She can feel a little trickle of ink drip down her head but otherwise she feels fine, she’s taken much harder blows during her time with the rebels so whomever hit her will have to try harder than that. Eight quickly regains her barings and turns to face her attacker. However instead of an Octoling like she had been expecting, her assailant turned out to be something entirely different. It seemed to be… an android of some kind? Eight wasn’t too sure what she was looking at. That is, until it began to speak in a familiar voice that sent shivers down her back.

“Hello, 10,008.” The unforgettable voice of Tartar rang through the android’s body, like it was resonating from a speaker housed within the head but not quite soundproofed properly so it reverbs through the rest of it. “Come to save your pathetic little friend? I’m afraid you’re too late, she’s being processed as we speak.”   
  
Eight’s eyes widen in horror, that can’t be what’s happening! Three wouldn’t let them do that, she’d fight to her last breath! Especially if she thought there was even a chance that she’d hurt her friends if she didn’t. Eight drops her weapon, she knows it won’t do much against a non-cephalopod, and instead opts to try and rip the android’s head off. She screams in rage and charges straight for him.    
  
“LIAR!” Eight screams as tears stream down her face. Tartar attempts to dodge her but he fails miserably and she body slams his body into the wall. Immediately his systems flare up with errors, he had underestimated just how strong this one Octoling was. He recalibrates his systems quickly and pushes her off of him, taking a ready stance.   
  
“Finally a worthy opponent! Our battle will be legendary!” Tartar laughs maniacally and throws a punch towards Eight. Eight, being focused and enraged, dodges the move and grabs his wrist, flipping him over her head and slamming him into the ground. More system errors. He had miscalculated his chances of winning this fight.

“GO TO HELL!” Eight grabs a disc off her belt, activates it, and while Tartar is down, she slams it into his chest. Tartar gets up and readies for another blow but Eight is now nowhere to be seen. Eight has ducked for cover behind the door she used to enter the room in the first place, and then the loud  _ POP _ of the device detonating can be heard. Eight walks back into the room and looks over the now charred remains of Tartar. She laughs softly, oh how the mighty have fallen. She kicks what remains of the head of the body lightly and smirks. “So uncivilized.”

Finally she makes it to her destination, but the door is… locked. Well of course it is, why not? She grabs another disk off her belt and sticks it to the door, standing back a bit and covering her ears before once again the disc detonates with a loud confirming  _ POP. _ Shortly after, the large metal door falls over off of what used to be its hinges. What Eight sees when she comes through the door is not entirely what she had hoped to find, however there were still a great number of worse alternatives. 

Looking into the room Eight sees… what she assumes is a partially sanitized Octoling. She doesn’t have the same black sclera that all the sanitized Octarians did, and she’s also discarded her hypnoshades. The one unsettling thing was the fact that she held a knife. However the blade was coated in sanitized ink which meant she’d been fighting Tartar’s forces. The Octoling seems to relax as soon as Eight enters the room, which Eight takes as a good thing. However Eight’s eased expression is quickly replaced as she spots… a puddle of orange on the ground behind her.

“Th-THREE?!” Eight pushes past the Octoling who seems content not to interfere with anything Eight is doing, in fact she seems to still be watching the door. Eight takes a moment to assess Three’s condition and, oh this is not good. Three’s breathing is labored, she looks like she’s lost almost half of her ink, and her right tentacle has been severed. “Oh Three… I-I’m so sorry…”

Three perks up slightly hearing Eight’s voice, the Inkling weakly raises her hand and brushes away Eight’s tears. Three is in immeasurable pain, however she can’t stand to see her girlfriend cry. Actually speaking of Eight being her girlfriend, Three had something important to ask her that she had… originally wanted to be under better circumstances. But Three isn’t sure if she’ll make it now, she doesn’t want to miss her chance.

“E-Eight.. I-I need to a-ask you something…” Three coughs slightly and a splatter of orange ink leaks from her mouth. Eight holds Three’s body in her arms and looks down at her, stroking her face gently and trying to remain calm.

“What… What is it Three?” Eight knows that time is short but… something inside her is telling her that she has to let Three ask her question before she moves her. Some part of Eight is dying to know what her lover would think is so important that it has to be asked now of all times.

“Eight… m-my love… my sunshine… my world… w-will you… m-marry me?” Three smiles a weak smile before coughing again, she’s still wearing the same shirt she was on their last date… which was three days ago. Only it was stained with dried ink and would likely have to be replaced… assuming the owner was still around to replace it.

“Oh Three…” Eight smiles and small happy tears prick her eyes. She had assumed Three was planning to ask this question, she’d been acting differently lately and she could tell that Three was so much more nervous than usual. But to actually hear the Inkling say those words? Nothing could ever have prepared Eight for it. “Yes, of course I will!”

“Good… I’m glad…” Three’s voice trails off as she loses strength and passes out. Eight quickly scoops Three up into her arms and checks her hearts and her breathing. They’re all faint, but still working. Eight knows time is important so she turns back towards the door and runs out the same way she came in, adrenaline and love now fueling her body.

  
“We’re coming out!” Eight calls into her headset as she sprints as fast as she can with Three unconscious in her arms. She presses a kiss to Three’s head and hopes she is fast enough. She has to be fast enough. She’s so close she can taste it, Three is going to make it. Eight wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t. Eight looks down at Three briefly and she hates how she can see just how much she had to go through, she’s liable to have nightmares about this event for a long time, so Eight does one thing she hopes will help Three  _ not _ have a nightmare right now. “Don’t worry, my love. It’s over now, it’s over.”


End file.
